Pointless Evil

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 1:33 pm

I prefer to play the good side because there seems to be no reason to chose the evil side. Almost every evil act is really pointless and even does you more harm than good. Being evil just doesn't tempt me at all and you usually just
get lousier rewards. For example in Kotor the light side has better equipment than the dark. And being evil is mostly just calling peole names and stuff like that. Pointless. In every game they say to fight the evil side because it tempts you with promises of power, but in the game you get no such promises.

I think that you should, when evil, be able to aquire more power for yourself by paying a price. For example lose your allies or get more enemies. This would make me, at least, start to consider which side I would choose.

Fable promised some changes to the normal alignment system. I'm really looking forward to seeing it myself.

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:12 pm

Ronan wrote:Fable promised some changes to the normal alignment system. I'm really looking forward to seeing it myself.

I played Fable already and I don't see anything great about the alignment system. Sure, it is still the good/bad mechanic but it really doesn't have that much of an impact in the game world. It's just there for aesthetic purposes.

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 1:45 am

I meant Fable 2, sorry

AvatarOfLight · Post by **AvatarOfLight** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:17 am

Naturally there's a reason for evil being pointless in games now. If even a single game would fully reward the truly dedicated purposeful evil path all the way through, all gamers everywhere would go nuts and attack people in the streets. I follow the news, I know what nasty bastards we all are.

EDIT: I think I may be slightly bitter

Kree · Post by **Kree** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 4:37 am

I normally tinker with the evil side of things to see how different it is or the difference. Some games it can be cool and different and nor really change things a tonne is terms of access to equipment. Games like Arcanum offer different NPC's who can join your team which is pretty cool, adds replayability...

SPOILER on Arcanum

Spoiler

And then in Arcanum again, it can be fun as to wipe out Stillwater (unless you haven't got master dodge yet) and then proceed with Kan Hua rather than Nasrudin. Again, adds replayability. Tollo can be fun to have if not a bit useless by that time, different endings with Kerghan is always good. It adds a nice flavour... And if you DO decide to become truly evil, that in itself is very possible... Just kill everyone and you get titles like 'Enemy of said city' where you literally are attacked by everyone on sight. And then of course you get vastly different endings depending on what you do...

END SPOILER

Overall the option adds good replayability... Rather than repeat the same 20-40 good guy quests over and over again to the same endings.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 5:07 am

AvatarOfLight wrote:Naturally there's a reason for evil being pointless in games now. If even a single game would fully reward the truly dedicated purposeful evil path all the way through, all gamers everywhere would go nuts and attack people in the streets. I follow the news, I know what nasty bastards we all are.

EDIT: I think I may be slightly bitter

Well, that ... and ...

The reason is also that "evil" is extreemly difficult to depict in a game.
How do you depict calculated evil, pretending to do good to further your own cause and all such actions which require "you" (read: the game) to know the players mindset and reasons for behaving as he does.

Combine with this the fact that it is impossible to script your way out of every scenario, then I doubt we'll see any good "evil" (hehe) for many years to come in games.

Evil - until then - usually is a psycotich madman slaying everybody. And until then, I'll play good because it provides me with the best gameplay experience

(now, isn't that actually evil

)

Lady Dragonfly · Post by **Lady Dragonfly** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:34 am

Xandax, "slaying everybody" is the neutral path in The Witcher.

The good-neutral-evil paths should be available although many gamers are tired of this traditional approach. The alternative is the moral ambiguity - you slaughter kittens not because you are evil; you do it because those poor villagers are starving (and kittens taste like chicken).

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:04 pm

Fallout 1 & 2 particularly offered a believable way to be evil. I know, you could abuse it, but generally, you could be evil would being a psychotic maniac.

Smiley:) · Post by **Smiley:)** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:12 pm

Evil in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic I and II had a pretty decent evil side. You can have more credits on the dark side, then on the light side. It's very different when you chose DS from LS.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:15 pm

KotOR would be one of the stereotypes of mindless evil à la "Murder, Death, Kill, Stupid Ass, Excrement!" It offered very few really realistic-evil, i.e. selfish, choices. For the most part simply brutal slaughter or name calling.

Smiley:) · Post by **Smiley:)** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:22 pm

Then you brobably haven't played these 2 games in every possible way, like I did.

GawainBS · Post by **GawainBS** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:25 pm

The fact that such options appeared as the apparent Dark Side solutions, is enough testament to my statement.
No, I didn't play it completely as Dark Side, just because it never appeared to go beyond the "Must kill! AAARGGHH!!!" dialog options.
The way the Dark Side is depicted there, and in most games, isn't Evil, it's Stupid.

AvatarOfLight · Post by **AvatarOfLight** » Thu Feb 28, 2008 2:44 pm

Smiley, the point Gawain is trying to make is basically that if Palpatine would follow KoToR Dark Side, he'd pull out of his Lightsaber and attempt to slay every single member of the senate, rather than orchestrate a war to gain political power. I don't think there's much of a discussion there. It's just true.